Fullers ESB & London Pride Recipe

Let's do a partigyle. One way to partigyle commonly known by homebrewers is to take just the first runnings of a mash and make a strong beer... then sparge and use the second runnings to produce a second beer of lesser strength sometimes called the small beer.

Then there is how commercial brewers have done it for hundreds of years and that is to take the first runnings, boil and hop it as if it were a single beer. Then take the second runnings (maybe even the third or more) then boil and hop those separately. So far so good and here is where homebrewers would stop calling each gyle a separate beer. But the old way blends those different strength beers into the fermenter at varying percentages to make many different beers. Here is how former Fuller’s brewer Derek Prentice describes the process..."They all share a common malt and hop grist. Dark malts typically will be readily solubilized and hence more prevalent in first worts. Once the wort streams are blended into the fermenter, they will impart unique characteristics into the final beers.”

You may be surprised to learn that some of your favorite beers all come from the same malt bill, hops and mash tun. Another former head brewer from Fullers, John Keeling, explains the beauty of the process... “Parti-gyles are the most efficient way of using a mash tun both in terms of speed and in terms of extract. It is not complicated and is rather simple and elegant.”

Fuller's uses a single grist to produce four distinct beers... London Pride, ESB, Golden Pride and Chiswick Bitter. Those beers even share the same hops. Some of these are blended and some are not.

The two that are not are Fuller's ESB and London Pride. You can make both in the same brew day using the partigyle method common to homebrewers where the first runnings will be your ESB and the second runnings will be London Pride. Or you can brew each one separately. The recipe and details all come directly from John Keeling in an interview conducted by the Brewing Network in 2010.

The recipe is quite simple:
95% Pale Ale Malt
5% Crystal 150
Target hops for bittering
Challenger, Northdown and Goldings hops in the last 5 minutes of the boil. Note that Goldings should be only 5% of the total late addition hops.
English Ale Yeast.

The OG of ESB is around 1.058 with an ABV of 5.9%
London Pride has an OG of 1.047 with an ABV of 4.7%

The color of ESB should be about 16 SRM
London Pride will be around 12 SRM

If you treat your water Mr. Keeling says Fuller's says to use a standard Burton-ization treatment.

A single infusion mash is used at 148 F. Fuller's does not use a mash out. Sparge temp is 168 F. Remember, if you are brewing both using a partigyle method the sparge is to collect the second runnings for your London Pride.

The boil time is a standard 60 minutes and Mr. Keeling says their evaporation rate is 7 to 8%. If you want to get into that level of detail.

While the boil kettle additions of hops are identical for both ESB and London Pride, there are dry hop additions used in ESB but not LP. Keeling stated that ESB is dry hoped in the fermenter and then during conditioning which lasts four weeks. However, he did not say which hops are used or in what amounts.

Both beers are fermented at the same temperatures. Yeast is pitched at about 62 F and then let rise to 68 F. Hold there until half the final gravity is reached. At that point chill back down to 62 F until 1/4 of final gravity. Then they chill it to 42 F and let it stand for 2 days before moving it to conditioning.
If you want to simplify you could pitch at 62 F. Let it rise to 68 and hold it there for up to 4 days and then dry hop for another 2 or thee days. 7 days total primary fermentation. Then cold crash and package.

Once again, you could brew each beer one at a time on separate brew days. Just build a single batch recipe to match the OG, ABV, IBU and SRM's described. However, if you do decide to partigyle start with the ESB recipe below and design so that you get enough wort from each of your runnings for the batch size you choose. My recipe below is for a single 6 gallon batch. I would scale that up for the partigyle.

Note: This recipe includes a bit of black malt to get the color needed. This is perfectly fine because the 2018 Fullers recipe does include a small amount of black malt. An image of the more recent Fuller's recipe is provided below.

Oh, and as for which maltster to use, John Keeling said any English standard pale ale malt that homebrewers have access to will work fine. He says that they have contracts with Muntons, Baird, Simpson and Thomas Fawcett to name a few. Sometimes they use 100% from one maltster and sometimes a blend of two or more. Use whichever is available. Cloning a beer accurately is often more about good brewing technique as much as it is about the specific ingredients.

Fullers ESB
Strong Bitter (11 C)
Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.77 gal
Boil Time: 90 min
End of Boil Vol: 6.04 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 5.00 gal Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage
Taste Notes:

Date: 02 Nov 2018 Brewer: Kevin58
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: 01A e5 Gal Ale Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 79.1 % Taste Rating: 30.0

Ingredients

Amt	Name	Type	#	%/IBU	Volume
11 lbs 3.0 oz	Pale Ale Malt, Extra (Simpsons ) (1.8 SRM)	Grain	1	94.0 %	0.87 gal
9.4 oz	Caramel/Crystal Malt - 150L (Bairds) (150.0 ...	Grain	2	4.9 %	0.05 gal
2.0 oz	Black Malt (Simpsons) (845.9 SRM)	Grain	3	1.1 %	0.01 gal
1.00 oz	Target [11.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop	4	36.8 IBUs	-
0.50 oz	Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	5	2.5 IBUs	-
0.50 oz	Northdown [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	6	2.8 IBUs	-
0.25 oz	Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min	Hop	7	0.8 IBUs	-
1.0 pkg	English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [35.49 ml]	Yeast	8	-	-

Est Original Gravity: 1.059 SG Est Final Gravity: 1.019 SG Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.3 % Bitterness: 42.9 IBUs
Est Color: 17.7 SRM
Mash Name: 03 e Light Body (148F)
Sparge Water: 5.33 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F 

Mash Profile
Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 14.5 oz Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Target Mash PH: 5.20
Mash Acid Addition: None Sparge Acid Addition: None 

Here is a look at the 2018 log book as posted on Twitter by Hayley Marlor who is a brewer at Fuller's. https://twitter.com/FullersHayley/status/946762356914352133